


the burning stars

by Lizzen



Category: Aliens (1986)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:11:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8878966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzen/pseuds/Lizzen
Summary: “He’s your husband?” and she responds impulsively by covering his hand with her own, the touch branding him as hers, ambiguously, but singularly hers. Hicks doesn’t shirk away, he doesn’t move. Lets her do it. He does not respond in kind, a familiar touch or confirmation. He doesn’t need to.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/gifts).



> A treat for anr for Yuletide 2016

There’s moments when Ellen looks at Hicks, and she wonders what it would be like to touch him, really touch him. To find out how hot his skin is; an intimate and knowing act. 

It’s just a thought, but a consistent and a persistent one. She likes the feeling that comes along with it – the sense that she could undo him with a single touch. Tear him up, break him down to the base parts. 

And then Hicks will glance at her, and when that glance turns into a gaze and she can only smile. Let him stare as she looks away.

*  
After LV 426, and after their rescue by pirates, Ellen has a lot to consider, a lot of potential action plans. There’s facing off with the Colonial Administration, or Weyland-Yutani. There’s getting into bed with the rival corporations or the independent colonies. There’s living the life of a pirate in the black. There’s being a faceless colonist somewhere safe.

But nowhere is safe, and no option is safe.

And after all that’s happened, after all she’s done, Ellen is tired all the way down to her bones.

*  
They stand together, a strange little family. Newt with her face pressed against glass, staring at a nebula with Hicks next to her, Ripley behind.

The nebula is an explosion of color; the design unknowable to any artist’s eye. A fantastic flourish of light and sound unheard.

It’s stunning, otherworldly to Ripley, who never studied the why and the how of stars – only how to navigate through them. Hicks, however, knows enough to explain the science to Newt. She sucks it up greedily, looking out and beyond.

Ripley stands apart, keeps her distance, and distance keeps her sane.

What if, she thinks, what if I had stayed on the Sulaco as the marines went down. Stayed safe in space; thousands of miles away. 

When the terrible news was broadcast to her of the dangers below, she could have nuked the site from orbit; a cold, unforgiving solution. Wasting all those lives to obliterate the enemy in one fell stroke. 

There would be a loneliness that followed, but significantly less nightmares. 

Because here’s the thing about living with Newt and Hicks. She dreams, oh how she dreams, of them dead; bodies rotted with decay on some planet’s poisoned shores.

*  
When she closes her eyes, it slithers into the room. She can hear its hiss, smell the sour scent, and see its teeth. The alien, past and inevitable future, thrives in her mind’s eye. Memory and imagination are clawed hooks in her heart, a persistent horror. 

She thinks: It had to come from somewhere.

She thinks: I could do something, I could arm the universe with knowledge about the enemy.

She thinks: I am responsible for it, and for every life it takes from now on.

And despair is an unavoidable pain that pecks at her, toys with her. For what power does she, she, nobody ex-Lieutenant Ripley, she have to do anything about it? It’s enough to go mad. 

*  
It’s enough to go _mad_.

*  
When Ellen’s boots first hit the deck of the Nostromo, she thought of her daughter’s last words: “don’t go, mama, don’t go.” 

*  
She remembers. 

A blistering curse spills out of her as the queen threatens to advance. Ellen tastes bile in her mouth, but there is a power in her veins like she’s never known before. Terror is only an afterthought; victory is the only option she has. 

The queen moves like black oil, sinuous and serpentine. Ellen slams as the queen strikes, and their dance across the hangar seems to last a lifetime. 

A fleeting feeling hits her hard in the gut; she is thankful, truly thankful that Hicks is safe, safe in the dropship. 

She remembers: she couldn’t save Dallas.

*  
Hicks freelances as mercenary muscle and he’s damn good at it; the military mind has its place in the black where the strong eat the weak. He doesn’t offer much strategy, but if you point, he’ll shoot. 

And thanks to the alien, he’s not as pretty as he once was. But she still likes the look of him.

It’s not ideal, it’s not what either of them wants; but her indecision is a tar pit. And they need the money.

He’ll be gone weeks at a time, leaving them on various planets with money enough for room and board. She’ll get hired on at the loading docks, and in the evenings, she and Newt will voraciously read news on the Network. Both of them waiting for the news they can’t bear; inevitable, horrific news.

It never comes, but they wait for it anyway.

*  
Someone asks: “He’s your husband?” and she responds impulsively by covering his hand with her own, the touch branding him as hers, ambiguously, but singularly hers. Hicks doesn’t shirk away, he doesn’t move. Lets her do it.

He does not respond in kind, a familiar touch or confirmation. He doesn’t need to.

When the conversation drifts, her hand does not linger on his skin but something in her heart aches for it to stay.

*  
There are so few things she can control, so many things out of reach. But she can curb her smoking habit. Newt hates it, tells her and Hicks often how much she hates it, and so she stops and Hicks follows. He doesn’t fuss, but she can see him shake a little not to have the crutch, the comfort. 

She ignores the tremor in her own skin, the shudder in her fingers and the longing in her mind; and instead, instead—

She thinks about pushing him against a wall, hard enough that his head would hit hard against steel; and a little stunned noise would peal out of him. She thinks about getting to her knees, making short work of his belt and pants, and pulling out his dick. It would be heavy in her hand. She’s not gone down on a man in a century, she thinks, and she wonders if she’s any good at it still.

She thinks that he would breathe just a little louder than usual, and that would be her cue that she was doing it right, getting him relaxed, getting him off.

She thinks about it a lot.

*  
Space is mostly made of dark matter; empty, uncharted, unknowable nothingness. Human life scattered among the stars follows lines of community and commerce, an infrastructure ruled by corporations and managed by Colonial Administration. And this house of cards can be ruined by one, one greedy official.

And she knows, she knows there are more than just one. Knows the system is rotted all the way down to the core.

*  
She’s alone in the room when Hicks returns, returns early. He’s white as a sheet and drenched with sweat. And he’s deadly silent. 

She knows without asking.

What she needs is answers, what she wants is comfort. 

So, with purpose, she moves toward him, her hands reaching out to touch his face. He tilts his cheek into her palm, and his eyes close tight, too tight. With a hushing noise, she slowly begins to take off his armor, and when that’s finished, she takes care of the rest of his clothes. It’s a process and she takes her time. 

It’s the first time she’s seen him fully naked, and his scars are considerable; markings from before, and after. Her fingers slide along every single one of them, but linger where the alien’s blood etched into his skin and muscle.

He’s shaking now.

She guides him to the refresher and turns on the shower to hot, hotter than they can afford. And she tugs off her own clothes without ceremony. His eyes don’t leave hers as she pulls him into the shower and fills her hands with soap to wash his skin.

It's an odd sort of intimacy, barely negotiated. He moves at her direction, but is still otherwise. She holds him under the water stream and the suds slide down his skin. And some of his fear must wash away too because— 

—his hands, unbidden, rise and hold on to her shoulders, a steady grip. And she leans in as a response. His lips reach hers first; something soft and careful. A judicious kiss, but, as it lingers, it becomes a something like a promise. 

She can't refuse him, nor does she want to. The water runs cold as they cling to each other, a warmth growing in their embrace. His hands do not wander, but his mouth opens to her with a heated sweetness. 

He's been holding back, she thinks, holding back so much. 

And as she savors his taste, she knows she’s been a woman starved all this time.

His name is a whisper on his lips and he grips her tighter, tight enough for her to know how hard he is. She smiles against his mouth, and when her hand snakes down to touch him, he shivers all over. 

Taking Dwayne Hicks apart and putting him back together again is something new, something wonderful, and there are so many ways she can navigate these waters. When he keens as her grip tightens just a little, she makes her decisions. 

It takes a few moments to dry off, especially as he continues to kiss her, any part of her now, as they move to the bed they’ve shared for months now. Shared without touching, touching like this.

She almost loses control when he kisses the soft skin of her neck, makes the smallest of sucking sounds and his fingers dig into her hips. There’s an immediate desire to let him have at it with her against the wall; a desolate fuck in dark times. 

But no, no. She wants this to be good, to be a kindness before they – before they – 

She refuses to think about what happens after. Not now, not yet.

Her hands push and pull, and he ends up on his back, staring up at her. “I’ve loved you, Ellen,” he says as she slides in, straddling his legs and pressing her sex against his. “And I love you still.” 

She’s already thoroughly wet but that’s enough to make her sigh out something frantic as she sinks down on him, lets him fill her up. And there she lingers. He strains, desperate, and she juts her hips – once, twice, and then the rhythm between them is found. Something chaotic and messy, and real. 

Ellen Ripley’s been out here a long time, and intimacy like this nearly overwhelms her. But she is ravenous for it. She won’t have peace till she envelops him wholly, till she has his heart in her hands, till he’s lost inside her. There’s something hysterical in his eyes as she rides him harder, trying to ensure her own pleasure is met. Nothing is quiet about her now, nothing subdued or controlled; she’s a wild thing unleashed. 

So it’s a surprise when she realizes he’s got a hand between them; his fingers at her clit, moving eagerly against her. It’s such a surprise that she slows, feels a rising fondness before—before—

Pleasure ricochets within, and her skin is aflame. The walls of her heat are like a trembling vise around his dick, and he’s over the edge within moments, coming with a long gasping breath. But his fingers never cease, so she comes again, comes again in shock this second time, and laughs when it’s complete. 

And so she kisses him then, long open mouthed kisses. His hands hold her, his legs entwine with hers; he is safe, something safe for her to possess, possess fully.

*  
They’re dressed and silently watching the news when Newt scampers in, clinging to her tablet. 

“It’s on Earth,” she says, her little face white and her mouth tight with anger. “Someone let it in.”

Ellen squeezes Dwayne’s hand tight, tight enough to hurt. “We know.”

“What do we do?” Newt asks.

She breathes in deeply, centered at last. "I have an idea."

#


End file.
